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- Hoover, John Edgar
intelligence gathering could take place with relative ease. Moreover, Hong Kong’s port facilities provided the U.S. Navy with a convenient fueling sta- tion during military expeditions, especially during the Vietnam War. In view of these advantages, America supported Britain’s retention of Hong Kong and encouraged the British to improve the colony’s economic and social con- ditions in hopes of making Hong Kong a free-world outpost that would stand in sharp contrast to conditions on the mainland. Hong Kong’s strategic importance began to recede in the early 1970s when the PRC and the United States normalized diplomatic relations. Hong Kong’s diminished value was confirmed in 1984 when the PRC and Britain agreed on the return of the colony to Chinese control in 1997. Hong Kong’s Cold War value was briefly revived after the PRC’s Tiananmen Square crackdown on 4 June 1989, when Hong Kong’s future sovereignty became contingent upon the PRC’s international conduct and human rights record. In the end, it is hard to overstate Hong Kong’s importance in the waging of the Cold War. Law Yuk-fun See also China, People’s Republic of; China, Republic of; Chinese Civil War; Containment Policy; Human Rights; Korean War; Taiwan Strait Crisis, First; Taiwan Strait Crisis, Second; United Kingdom; Vietnam War References Lane, Kevin P. Sovereignty and the Status Quo: The Historical Roots of China’s Hong Kong Policy. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1990. Law, Yuk-fun. “Delayed Accommodation: United States’ Policies Towards Hong Kong, 1949–1960.” Unpublished PhD diss., University of Hong Kong, 2002. Tucker, Nancy Bernkopf. Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States, 1945–1992: Uncer- tain Friendships. New York: Twayne, 1994. Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) during 1924–1972. Born on 1 January 1895 in Washington, D.C., J. Edgar Hoover studied law at George Washington University and earned an LLB in 1916 and a master of law degree the next year. He went to work for the Department of Justice in 1917. Beginning in 1919, Hoover spent two years as a special assistant to At- torney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Hoover’s anticommunist crusade began under Palmer when he assisted in the arrests of more than 4,000 suspected radicals and resident aliens, a number of whom were deported. Following this First Red Scare, the Palmer Raids, and the financial scandals of President Warren Harding’s administration, on 10 May 1924 Hoover was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation (soon to become known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation). He turned his attention to reforming the agency, increasing its professionalism, and, above all, crafting an image of himself as a tough, progressive, and scientific crime fighter. 924
Hoover, John Edgar Hoover, John Edgar 1895–1972) By the late 1930s Hoover was convinced that communism threatened social values and posed a significant threat to the United States. This atti- tude hardened in the postwar period when the FBI liaison to the highly secret Venona project, an army intelligence effort to decode thousands of Soviet diplomatic cables, reported the discovery of a Soviet spy ring within the U.S. government. Hoover’s fear that the hidden apparatus of the Communist Party had permeated American liberal organizations set much of the domestic tone of the early Cold War in the United States. His belief that President Harry S. Truman’s loyalty program had not gone far enough to stanch the communist threat prompted his testimony in 1947 before the House Committee on Un- American Activities (HUAC). Hoover also elaborated on the dangers posed by communism in such books as Masters of Deceit (1958) and A Study of Com-
munist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) utilizing provisions of the anticommunist Smith Act; tracked down secret communists in gov- ernment, such as Alger Hiss, a former State Department official accused of espionage; and arrested and interrogated Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were accused of betraying the secret of the atom bomb to the Soviet Union. The 1950s perhaps marked the height of Hoover’s influence, as he enjoyed the trust of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and lived a privileged life that included the company of millionaires and Hollywood celebrities. By the end of the decade the FBI had broken the back of the CPUSA, which forced the Soviet Union to replace its network of ideo- logically motivated spies with professionals and paid in- formants. Hoover nonetheless refused to acknowledge his anticommunist successes and continued to devote FBI resources to fight the CPUSA and other radical groups, often at the expense of emerging hot-button issues such as growing violence against civil rights workers in the South and the continued rise of organized crime. Hoover had a strained relationship with President John F. Kennedy, but President Lyndon B. Johnson under- stood Hoover’s clout and used the FBI much as President Franklin Roosevelt had, as a tool to advance his political agenda. Johnson pushed Hoover to destroy the network of violent Ku Klux Klan organizations in the South through use of the FBI’s counterintelligence program (COIN- TELPRO). It combined wiretapping with the use of in- formants and disinformation campaigns designed to disrupt target groups. However, the presence of former and cur- rent Communist Party members in civil rights and antiwar groups inspired Hoover to direct COINTELPRO opera- tions against civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panthers, the tiny Socialist Workers’ Party, and many others groups and individuals who attracted the FBI’s attention. Hoover, John Edgar 925
J. Edgar Hoover was the long-serving and controversial director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) dur- ing 1924–1975. (Yoichi R. Okamoto/Lyndon B. Johnson Library)
Hoover’s fear that the hidden apparatus of the Communist Party had permeated American liberal organizations set much of the domestic tone of the early Cold War in the United States. Yüklə 57,17 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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